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Adobe Opts for Sandbox Protection

, July 21, 2010

More security to come for PDF Reader

Adobe will be adding a sandboxing protection to the next release of Adobe Reader for Windows, says Brad Arkin, director of product security and privacy at Adobe. This feature is designed to keep JavaScript execution, 3D rendering, image parsing, and other forms of PDF processing to a specific areas the system, thereby preventing applications from installing or deleting files, modifying system information, or accessing processes.

This "Protected Mode"feature will be enabled by default and included in Adobe Reader browser plug-ins. The technology is based on Microsoft's Practical Windows Sandboxing and modeled after techniques used in Microsoft Office 2010 Protected View, Microsoft Office 2007, and the Google Chrome sandbox. Protected Mode will be extended later to include code that is "read-only" so that attackers will be prevented from being able to read sensitive information on a computer.

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